The Gateway Drug: Sugar, Part 2
We left off last time suggesting that maybe it’s time to accept the fact that the widely rumored and much discussed Gateway Drug, spoken of in addiction medicine, is actually sugar. A baby needs to love sugar for survival. Imbibing that liquid, whether from a bottle or a breast, is the one job it has […]
What About Endocrine Disruptors?
Hormones control metabolism, growth, development, the function of tissues, and a person’s mood. We have specialized organs for the production of hormones, and, just to keep things interesting, other organs can also secrete hormones as their second job. Often they gang up and work together, in which case you get something as elaborate as, for […]
Stress Eating Is Hereditary
This really should come as no surprise to anyone, but now it’s official: Stressed out teens are more likely to be overweight or obese, especially if they live with a mom who also feels frazzled… Fathers figure in this psychological dynamic, too, in a bit more complicated way. The point is, this has been known […]
Stress and Fat: A Complicated Relationship
Today we are watching a video from a class given by Dr. Elissa Epel at the University of California San Francisco, where she is a faculty member in the Department of Psychiatry. She and her colleagues have been studying the ways in which stress can lead to early onset of age-related disease processes. This episode […]